


Incompatible with life

by TururaJ



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 17:09:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TururaJ/pseuds/TururaJ
Summary: (Save him from the chains of misery? But you don’t live in a world of miracles, Seylum).





	Incompatible with life

**Author's Note:**

> Well, idk, this just wanted to be written. I'm planning for 2 or 3 parts, definitely not more. And, yes, to all wondering, this will have a happy ending.  
> Quoting: W.B. Yeats; W. Shakespeare.

He doesn’t know the exact moment it happens. He’s on his way to see Troyard; the hall is long and dark and uninviting. He listens to his own steps until he is right in front of the door, and when he puts his hand on the doorknob something inside him trembles.

Inaho pauses, not quite sure what is wrong. His health is as perfect as it can be; he’s twenty three, young still, his recent check with the doctor hasn’t shown any problems. Even the simplified version of the biomechanical eye-implant UFE had gifted him a year ago works without any malfunctioning. He should have no heart troubles or breathing troubles or any other feelings close to what he is feeling now. Yet, something unidentified coils inside him until he pushes the door open.

The room is spacious, but the walls are bare. There is not much furniture, not that the medical chamber would need it. To his left is a table, an array of unused syringes rests on it. To his right is a small glass cabinet, which doesn’t quite hide all the ampoules and pills stored within. There is also a hospital bed, one lone hospital bed that stands in the far corner of the room, and Inaho heads straight to it, content that no one else is around.

The sense of déjà vu is strong. Over the three years Inaho keeps visiting Troyard most of the time he finds himself in the same chamber, with Troyard chained to the bed, his wrists red or bruised from trying to free himself. It is on rare days that they meet in the proper meeting room where they can play chess. Inaho would prefer to play chess. Inaho would prefer Troyard to be quiet and simple. But he never is (maybe that’s why he keeps coming back?).

Inaho takes one of the chairs near the wall and drags it closer. He’s not being sneaky, so the screeching of the chair legs is loud, and it wakes Troyard out of his slumber. Inaho sits down and tries to fight the strange anger inside him. He is calmer usually, no, not usually - he is _always_ calm, _must_ be always calm. So he controls his voice carefully (despite the sight of bandages on Troyard’s arms, of bruises on his face; of lips looking blue and destroyed).

“You did it again. Why?” The question is pointless, Inaho knows. Troyard will explain, but he will never explain the underlying truth. He doesn’t need to. They both know the real reason (Save him from the chains of misery? But you don’t live in a world of miracles, Seylum).

“There is the new guard. Stupid as fuck,” Troyard croaks. It is obvious speaking hurts him, but he goes on, ignores the pain. He always does. “Took me a week to rile him up. Just a week, can you imagine? You UFE lot are pitiful. A few words here and there, and then everything goes- boooooom!”

Troyard tries to raise his hands to imitate whatever silliness he is saying but his hands are tied to the bed with the usual leather binds. He groans and instead moves slowly on the bed, half-turns to Inaho. It’s not very light in the chamber since it’s the middle of the night and the lights are dimmed, and Troyard’s eyes look dark, almost grey now, and dangerous. His dirty and messy hair falls onto his cheeks, making him seem untamed and wild. The bruises on his face blend with the shadows, and Inaho shivers - not from the fear or intimidation, no. The moment is short, but for a moment Troyard doesn’t look human.

 _‘I’m losing him,’_ Inaho thinks suddenly. The thought is too desperate for his liking, but he can’t stop it. It repeats inside his head over and over again like an annoying insect would circle its prey.

“You don’t want me ordering the warden to administer the sedatives, do you?” The words leave his mouth grudgingly. He knows this is not the right way to deal with Troyard’s behavior, but it’s been three years. Three years of Troyard gradually falling deeper and deeper in the bottomless pit of self-destruction. Inaho had tried everything: talking, supporting, reasoning, compromising, just being there, and so far he hadn’t succeeded in the slightest.

“You won’t do that, you won’t,” Troyard shudders, his fingers clench over the leather binds that cover his wrists. He clearly remembers the last and only time Inaho ordered the sedatives. Inaho considers that time two years ago a large mistake on his part. It may have killed the ounce of trust Troyard felt towards him. But it was the only way Inaho could cope with the situation at the time.

Back then he was torn between his work and Yuki’s troubles - his sister’s health crumbled because of her unexpected pregnancy. For a time she was very ill, and Inaho feared she would die together with the child. Thankfully, in the end everything went well, but on that day when the warden had called Inaho and told him Troyard tried to hang himself with the help of the bed sheets Inaho nearly snapped. He couldn’t go there, not when Yuki was on the verge of death, so he ordered to administer heavy tranquilizers until his next visit.

Troyard was a mess when Inaho finally went back to see him. He could barely remember his own name, didn’t know who Inaho was, kept singing the tune of a childish song Inaho would later listen to in his nightmares, and the saliva would constantly run down his chin, making him look like a man whose brains were irreparably dead. He’d piss and shit himself, and he’d lie there for hours in that reeking stench because the prison workers kept saying they weren’t hired to clean after him. It took a week for the sedatives to work through Troyard’s body, and Inaho was the only one to look after him. He’d dealt with everything himself - cleaning, washing, feeding - and he could only feel the immense regret when Troyard, finally sane, looked at him silently with a mix of hurt and hate, slowly ebbing away from his eyes.

He had never looked again at Inaho with anything but controlled disgust.

“I won’t,” Inaho agrees, accepting defeat, and at once feels tired. Yuki constantly asks him why he is continuing to stay in charge of Troyard whereas he could pass the burden to someone else. (“There is a whole world waiting for you, Inaho,” she says and beams at Inko when the three of them sit at a cozy café one late evening, “Just stop. You’ve done enough. Go back to us, to your family.” Inko smiles at Yuki’s words and watches Inaho, her hands clasped a bit too tight.) And Inaho knows he can - pass the burden, that is. The papers have been ready for a long time; he keeps them inside the safe at his flat. Yet every time he wants to put his sign there something stops him ( _“Your eye… is that from when I shot you?”; “Hasn’t this gone long enough?”; “I deceived. I stole. I killed. I sacrificed many of my own. Please.”)._

“Please,” Troyard says in his rare moment of weakness and doesn’t quite look at Inaho. His eyes are closed now; the same kind of defeat Inaho feels is etched in his tense body. “I don’t want to live.”

 _‘Not after you found out she has laid all the blame on you. Not after the letters you asked me to send her. Not after more than three years of silence. Not after being reduced to a living corpse. Would I want to live if I were you?’_ Inaho thinks and freezes. Lately, he doesn’t understand himself. His thoughts are foreign, unexplainable; they tend to stray to patterns that lead far from logic, leaving him lost and weary.

“You haven’t asked me for books lately,” Inaho says, making it seem like he ignores Troyard’s previous words. There is nothing else he can do. He cannot let Troyard go. He cannot. He doesn’t know why, but he cannot. “What would you prefer - a novel, a science book or poems maybe?”

Troyard turns away from him, silent. His light blue t-shirt has ridden up (must have while he was dozing off before Inaho’s visit) and doesn’t quite hide the bit of the scarred and bruised flesh of his chest and abdomen. Troyard is too thin, Inaho notices, and he wants to touch that bit of skin with his hands and slide his hands up Troyard’s body to warm him up, to chase away the coldness he knows is there. Inaho has touched him like this two years ago while tending to him. Sometimes his hands are tingling when he remembers about it.

Inaho clasps his hands over his lap, and for a second he compares himself to Inko. The image is strange and leaves Inaho with a feeling he can’t exactly pinpoint. But it’s unpleasant; it somehow causes the bitterness in his throat.

“ _No matter what I said, for wisdom is the property of the dead, a something incompatible with life; and power, like everything that has the stain of blood, a property of the living…_ ” Troyard mumbles, stretches his leg slowly, and Inaho watches as Troyard’s toes curl over the white sheet. (“It’s the small things that bring us joy in life!” laughs Yuki, leaning over the table and pinching Inaho’s cheek.)

“Poetry it is then,” Inaho says, very sure that Troyard was quoting the words with a completely different reasoning.

In his chest the heated coiling resumes and it almost hurts. Inaho rubs his forehead.

He is not sure anymore he wants to know what the feeling means.

***

He is twenty-five when he finally understands. There is blood everywhere, over Troyard’s bunk bed in his cell, soaked through Troyard’s blanket and sheets and pillow; there is a smudge of it on the floor, and some stains over walls too - Troyard had tried to flee from him when he realized Inaho had noticed. He had managed only a couple of steps though and then collapsed to the floor, too weak already to stay on his legs. Inaho gathers him in his arms, heart beating too painful against his ribcage.

For a minute, the precious sixty seconds he can use to spend on saving Troyard’s life, Inaho just sits there, crushed by his realization and fear and despair. And it is only a guard’s startled cry that springs him into action. In a flash they are in the medical chamber, Troyard is put on the bed; and the prison doctor is working over him in a rush, with the familiar precise movements. This is not the first time Troyard cuts himself - Troyard is cunning, it takes him time but he finds a way to acquire a sharp object. But this is the first time _after_ Inaho comes to realization about his feelings. This is the first time he sits here, absolutely useless, and watches another guard giving his blood away to save Slaine Troyard. Because Inaho’s blood type is incompatible. Or maybe he is incompatible with Slaine Troyard, and that’s just the way life is for the last five years or so.

Yet again it is a close call, but Troyard survives. Inaho sits with him after his hands had been stitched and bandaged. Troyard is so pale he seems dead, and Inaho can’t help but brush his - almost gray now - hair away from his forehead. He leaves his fingers there, touching softly the cold skin, wishing the time would stop so that he could just stay like this and listen to Troyard’s breathing forever. (“Why? Why?” screams Yuki, so furious she throws her cup flying and it misses the sink. “Why can’t it be Inko? She’s been waiting all these years, you ungrateful little brother! I want to move in with my husband, take care of my daughter and watch you be happy too! Why, Nao, just why?”)

He knows now why, but he will probably never tell Yuki this. She would want explanations, but acknowledging the fact and understanding it are two different things. The real ‘why’ eludes Inaho. Maybe it is the stubbornness that defines Slaine Troyard. Maybe it is the way Troyard quotes the poems on his good days _(“…and twice a thousand more starved upon the shore and withered to a bag of bones! What had the Caesars but their thrones?_ ”). Or maybe it is the way Troyard fights against the restraints on his bad days, savage and feral and absolutely, terrifyingly beautiful (“Come here, Kaizuka, come-come, so I could rip your throat, you selfish arrogant prick!”).

Inaho is in love with Slaine Troyard. Inaho is afraid of Slaine Troyard. Inaho is defined by Slaine Troyard. Inaho is doomed. There is nowhere to run, for you cannot run from yourself.

He thinks of his options. They are few. He can walk away from the situation - sign the shameful papers and leave Troyard in the hands of someone else; someone who surely won’t be as watchful and careful and patient as Inaho is. Troyard would be able to end his life as he had tried to countless times, and in that he would finally find peace. Inaho can also stay and continue like this, until one day he’ll get tired and miss some small detail, and Troyard would slip through his fingers, slither away from his hold like the devious little snake he is. Just like he did today.

The last option, the most impossible of all, is for Inaho to try and make a change, to persuade Troyard to stop wasting his life. It sounds like creating a miracle Inaho doesn’t believe in. How one creates a miracle in the first place? How one finds where to start? Inaho guesses he can go to a church or a temple and pray, but he knows it won’t help, just like it doesn’t help thousands of visitors all over the world. Religion is something that helps you find closure, but it doesn’t help you per se.

Inaho leans his elbows against his knees and covers his mouth with his hands. He feels sick. He feels tired. There are bags under his eyes, he knows, though he hasn’t looked at himself in a mirror for a long time. But they were there last time Yuki had visited his flat and complained about the mess he and his life had turned into. (“Why is your fridge empty, Nao? Why aren’t your clothes ironed? Why are you taking pills, do you have headaches?”)

Inaho is twenty-five, but he feels like a child again, back in the orphanage, the ‘Home’, surrounded by bullies, their faces red and angry, mouths sprouting harsh words they don’t even understand yet. They circle him, jump around him, hands holding, shouting, laughing, and suddenly their faces fade, and Troyard’s face appears. He is leaning over Inaho, straddling his hips, whispering into his ear, _“And love is less kind than the grey twilight, and hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.”_

Inaho shudders, opens his eyes. He had fallen asleep. Troyard is still lying unconscious on the bed, his breathing is steady.

Inaho has never prayed in his life. Inaho doesn’t believe in God. Yet, he looks to the ceiling and thinks, desperately, vehemently, ‘Please, send me a miracle. Please.’

***

It’s five in the morning. Inaho is in his small office on the first floor of the prison base. A cup of coffee is in his hand, and Inaho fights the insistent drowsiness. He is shaky, though he has managed three full hours of sleep after staying late and watching Troyard go through the pages of the new book Inaho had brought him yesterday. The book is a failure, obviously.

“What’s this? Modern poetry?” Troyard snorts, rips off a particular offensive page and stands up to recite in a loud voice, “ _You are here, love. I’m smitten above the clouds that were blue and rainy, but everything fell when it seemed like I never had a penny._ ” Inaho is not easy to trick though, he follows Troyard’s eyes observing Inaho’s pockets for something that could come handy in the future. Troyard is brilliant, Inaho thinks - in the long years of his imprisonment he had outwitted most of the guards and Inaho too, sometimes. Troyard is intelligent, and it pains Inaho to watch as his great mind sinks deeper and deeper into the darkness.

Inaho is halfway into his coffee, for once pleased that Troyard didn’t fight him about going to sleep - a good day, definitely - when the door to his office bursts open, and the warden, confused and distraught, hurries inside. Inaho values the man - he is in his sixties, but is always quick to act, has good eyes, pays attention to details, is responsible at work and doesn’t hate Troyard like some guards do. He also, for some unknown reason, likes Inaho and over the last years had acquired a habit of calling Inaho with a rather peculiar choice.

“Son, come quick,” the warden says, a deep frown latched on his face. “Troyard has been woken up and is transported into the meeting room.”

Inaho spills the rest of his coffee onto the table, right over his driving license, but he doesn’t care, not right now. “Who’s sanctioned it?” he asks, his voice hoarse. The shaking is gone from his body in a flash, but the fear seems to settle deep into his heart. His thinking is slow, perhaps because it is too early and he is exhausted; it takes him two minutes, while he half-runs into the glass meeting room, to understand that the only person who could authorize a visit to Troyard without going through Inaho first, is the Empress herself. The UFE would never visit during the night, and he can’t think of a reason they’d need Troyard after so many years. The political situation is stable; there is no imminent danger of breaking the peace.

Inaho is the first to reach the meeting room. The guards are already out; Troyard’s ankles are chained to the chair as the procedure requires, but what strikes Inaho most is the expression on Troyard’s pale face. Pure fear is ripping through him, forcing his lips to tremble so much that his teeth chatter. His body is a wreck of the bared nerves; he is shivering as if he has been plunged into the freezing water. There are bruises still evident on his face, the yellowish and bluish spots decorate the too thin cheeks and his chin. There are also bandages still all over his arms, shielding the recent cuts. He is far from the pleasant sight, and in the instant Inaho catches Troyard’s gaze, he feels it - the terror Troyard suffers at the mere thought of Asseylum seeing him the way he is.

Inaho has only seconds to act; he can already hear the shuffling behind his back, the voices of the guards, the polite timbre of the warden, who must have won some time for Inaho to reach the room first, and the inevitable creak of the door. Inaho yanks his blue uniform coat off, steps right in front of Troyard and covers his head and shoulders with his coat. There is a moment when Troyard wants to pull back from him, but then he seems to understand that Inaho is hiding him, saving him, and his thin fingers suddenly cling desperately to the folds of Inaho’s white shirt. Inaho’s heart misses a beat - Troyard is allowing him to help for the first time in years.

 _‘I’m already losing him enough. Why have you come?’_ is what Inaho wants to say when he glances back and looks at Asseylum. She looks older; her posture is more confident now; her dress is less ceremonial, the white fabric is covering her slim body elegantly; her long hair is pulled in a bun. She stops after entering the room, clearly surprised because of Inaho’s presence. She must have wanted the meeting with Troyard to be personal. Or maybe she didn’t want to see Inaho. Not after the letter she had sent him two years ago after finally conceiving a heir together with Klancain; Inaho had barely payed attention to the letter and threw it away in a trash bin; he was too irritated Asseylum had time to write him, but never to Troyard. _(‘I’ve thought of you, Inaho. I’ve thought of you, and I’m so ashamed. Oh, tell me, why it must be like this?’_ )

“Inaho… I…” Asseylum takes a deep breath; the surprise disappears from her features. Inaho thinks she is better at controlling her daydreaming now. “I wish to speak with Slaine.”

Under Inaho’s touch Troyard goes rigid. Inaho slowly moves his palm down his shoulder reassuringly. ‘ _I’m here, I’m right here, you’re safe_ ,’ he wants to say. “I’m afraid Slaine Troyard isn’t able to speak with you right now. Why don’t you come another day? We can discuss the time at my office.”

Inaho would really prefer for Asseylum to be easy, but it is a futile hope. She doesn’t accept retreat, for once acting like an arrogant grown up would. She steps forward and pulls the vacant chair closer, lowers on it with an air of someone who has all the power in the world. She speaks then, and Inaho’s hold on Troyard strengthens. The syllables that leave Asseylum’s mouth are pounding like thunder in Inaho’s ears.

“It has come to my attention that Slaine wants… to be freed of his life. And that because of his desire people who are charged with his care are… burdened.” Inaho feverishly hates the world right now (Who was it? Who? Yuki? Inko? Rayet? A dismissed guard who had connections with Vers?). Asseylum pauses and puts the papers she’s been holding on the table. Three pages, Inaho notices, it takes only three pages to destroy someone else’s life (two lives). “I’ve decided… if Slaine really wants that and it will lessen the burden on the UFE and you… Here are the papers; he just has to put a sign and it’ll be over. You see, I’ve thought long about the situation, and…”

Something inside Inaho snaps. He doesn’t let go of Troyard (he can feel the pain through the fabric of his shirt as Troyard digs his nails into his skin) but he turns sharply and throws the papers off the table, not caring that one of the pages flies directly into Asseylum’s face. “Then think more!” In the silence of the meeting room Inaho’s raised voice is deafening. It makes one of the Vers guards who are accompanying Asseylum come closer in worry. She waves him away and stands up. She seems lost a bit, uncomprehending, yet determined to finish the business she came here to do.

“I don’t know why you wish not to talk to me, Slaine,” Asseylum says gently, ( _breathe, breathe, don’t lay your hands on her, or you’ll lose him right this second)_ “But please know that your wish can be fulfilled any day. Kaizuka Inaho will have no say in this. Decide for yourself.”

And just like that Asseylum is gone; an echo of her malicious well wish dies fast in the dreadful silence. The guards leave the meeting room after Inaho signals them to go away (“ _Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me; he pays the whole, and yet am I not free,”_ Slaine whispers, too engrossed in reading the book to notice how Inaho stills behind the bars and closes his eyes, reluctant to break the rare peaceful moment _)._ Slowly, Inaho slides his coat off Troyard’s head and lets it fall on the floor; his hands are shaking. He knows what is coming; he forces himself to breathe.

“Give me the papers.”

Inaho has never seen Troyard so composed. He looks at Inaho directly and expectantly, like a winner over the fallen enemy. But there is no triumph in his eyes; the blue sea is listless, dried out, empty of life.

“No.”

“Give me the papers,” Troyard repeats, this time in a commanding voice. It’s like he is a count again, but this time he is beyond Inaho’s reach. He’s somewhere Inaho cannot reach.

“No,” Inaho whispers. There is an overpowering buzzing inside his head, and Inaho drops on his knees, suddenly feeling as if life is sucked out of him. He puts his hands on Troyard’s legs, like a desperate beggar would, and clutches the blue fabric.

“You don’t want me to call the guards, Kaizuka,” Troyard spits out with an evil smile, undoubtedly imitating all the times Inaho dared to threaten him with sedatives. And all of a sudden Inaho knows - this is the moment. This is where he opens all the cards, because if he doesn’t - it’s all over. He’ll be left alone to walk through the meaningless life, left with only his memories to go on - a pitiful forlorn existence he doesn’t wish to experience.

“I love you,” Inaho says. “I’m in love with you.”

Troyard answers something, laughs at him - Inaho doesn’t quite hear. His heart is beating wildly, so much that he feels sick, it gets hard to breathe. Something is wrong with his eyes too; it’s like the room becomes full of fog, then darkens at the edges.

“I’d die for you. I’d kill for you,” he begs. “Let me.”

Troyard’s lips move in disdain; a whirlpool of pale colors is carrying him away along with the rest of the world.

“Please,” Inaho manages to wheeze, and then he is no more.

***

When he opens his eyes he’s in the medical chamber, on the same bed he usually watches Troyard on. It’s like they have switched places. Slaine Troyard is sitting on the chair, one of his hands is bound to its back. There is no one else at the room presently, but the signs of the doctor’s attendance are obvious - the white coat is left on the table and Inaho can smell the ammonia liquid. Did he faint?

“You’ve no right to do this to me, you know,” Troyard says tiredly, watching Inaho with a cryptic look. No matter how long Inaho keeps looking into his eyes he cannot decipher the emotions there, aside from the apparent tiredness. But then Troyard turns his face away from him, hides his eyes behind the veil of his outgrown hair. “You are serious, aren’t you? I should have guessed you were the moment you voiced the words. You never lie.”

Inaho sits up, his head is still spinning a bit. He checks his phone; the sunrise is not that long away now. He considers carefully what he should say now, but all he can come up with is another plea. Is that how Troyard was feeling after Asseylum turned away from him - afloat among the despair, with no future or people to rely onto, walking the line between life and death? Inaho takes a breath, “Give me a year.”

“And how would a year help you?” Troyard snorts, his fingers tentatively touch the bandages on his arms. Inaho forces the image of him ripping the bandages and burying his nails in the fresh cuts away; Troyard had done it enough times, but he doesn’t have a reason to do it right now. Now that he has a real way out Inaho cannot control.

“I’ll take you from here, show you the world,” Inaho pauses. He isn’t even sure how he’s going to do that, but he knows he will. He’ll do his best. If need be, he’ll steal Troyard from the UFE and from the Empress. “I’ll take you to places… I’ll take care of you.”

“And what then?”

“And if a year from now on you’ll still want to sign these papers I won’t stand in your way.”

“You can’t stand in my way even now, you know,” Troyard mentions as if he wants to make sure Inaho is aware of the danger he faces. The danger he shouldn’t forget about.

“Please,” Inaho asks again, lost and desperate, searching for Troyard’s eyes. Their eyes meet, for a brief second, and once again Troyard shies away from his gaze. (“A monster like him doesn’t deserve so much care!” Yuki roars watching as Inaho gets ready to leave for the prison base). Silence seems to last eternally. Inaho doesn’t dare utter a sound. He can only wait for his verdict now.

“ _A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love_ ,” Troyard murmurs, then shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll give you a year, Kaizuka. As a thanks for keeping me company all this time. One more year of torture shouldn’t be as troublesome. But don’t hope for more.”

Something heavy settles inside Inaho’s chest. He knows he won’t get another chance. This is the miracle he had asked for; an impossible he has to turn into a miracle. And if he fails then he’ll too become incompatible with life.

**Author's Note:**

> The wonderful [@vennieandroxie](https://twitter.com/vennieandroxie) has gifted me an awesome art to this fic! I cannot be more happy now. Thank you so very much!  
> [CLICK HERE TO SEE CLICK CLICK](http://static.diary.ru/userdir/1/7/6/2/176295/85834222.jpg)


End file.
